Dad is insufferable — help!

[Anonymous]

My dad is 82 years old and in bad health (although not likely to die anytime soon). I am 49. I am ashamed to say that it is only in the last few years that I’ve truly separated from my parents to see them for what they were and are — mostly good but terribly flawed too. My dad is and was a big personality and very needy. He takes up all the space. For example, he desperately wants adulation and attention. Given him an inch and he’ll take a yard, and he can’t help it. I even wonder if I was used to meet his emotional and psychological needs as a kid (of course he did!), inadvertently stunting my growth. Now that I see this more clearly, I am angry and have little patience for him and his behavior. He will talk endlessly and sometimes I am rude to him. In my mind, I’m thinking, shut up, but I don’t say that. Now that he is nearing the end, he is even worse — a grotesque and exaggerated version of himself: self involved, full of self pity. But I also feel guilty for feeling this way — guilty for pulling away from him when he needs me more than ever. It feels like a weighty burden that I want to be free of. Does anyone else feel this way? Help!

[Anonymous]

My brother feels this way towards our dad. He has different flaws than yours but he can’t help but blame him for things and at the same time he feels responsibility.
I am trying to take over the physical and emotional aspects of care while my brother helps with the money (dad is poor).
Just know that you are not alone and many people feel conflicted about their parents.

[Anonymous]

It’s hard OP. I feel similarly about my mom. And now she’s the most time consuming part of my life. When I don’t put her first I feel horrible guilt, mostly because she really doesn’t have anyone else so without me she’d be completely on her own. And she needs full time care. I try to disengage and sometimes pretend I’m just helping a needy old woman who can be incredibly challenging and sometimes downright mean. I just can’t bring myself to not help her. I remind myself that this can’t go on forever. Maybe I’m being punished for something I did in a past life, maybe my future life will be better due to the care I’m providing. I just know who I am as a person, and I need to remind myself to stay the course. I envy my friends who have easy aging parents.

[Anonymous]

My husband’s older brother feels this way about their mother. He was a sickly child and was brought up pretty harshly. MIL made all her first-time parent mistakes with him.

In these cases I have more sympathy for the adult kids than the elderly parents…

[Anonymous]

I try to remind myself that when we were kids our parents likely wanted to tell us to stop talking many times and still listened to our endless stories as well. I also try my best to be patient and realize that many older people are just lonely and appreciate an audience and attention and that being old and feeling irrelevant can be depressing.

[Anonymous]

Op, you see him on your terms. You establish a pattern that will work for you. You arrive. You leave. All when you have arranged. You set him up with outside help so you don't do more than you, emotionally, can.

[Anonymous]

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, Or Self-Involved Parents
Lindsey Gibson

I am reading this book now, I think many people including yourself may benefit.

[Anonymous]

Therapy helps with these types of issues

[Anonymous]

My dad is the hero of every story he tells (which is really just covering up for all his deep insecurities). He is also an alcoholic that drove us around drunk when we were
Kids. He is a pathological liar.

He remarried after my mom died so he is his new wife’s problem. None of his kids have much of anything to do with him. It is easiest for me, because I realized who he really was in my early 20s. It is much harder for my sister who didn’t figure it out until her 40s. A part of her still thinks he can change even though she knows deep down it will never, ever happen.

A third party can often help you think through how much you will do or not do. That might be a husband, a friend or a therapist you pay. There are also lots of good books to read about boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Can you afford an in home caregiver for him? Even a few hours a week will give you some needed space and him an impartial person to be there. You don’t have to be an emotional doormat to love your parents and care for them in their last years and days.

[Anonymous]

Therapy for sure. Therapy helped me recover from my irreparably flawed relationship with my narcissitic, alcoholic father and helped me shed the guilt that it was somehow my fault that I couldn't get through to him and fix the relationship.

There is nothing you can do that will change him, so the best you can do is learn coping skills to deal with him in the present and learn how to undo the damage he's done to you over the years both while he's alive and when he's gone.

There will almost likely never be closure in the sense that he will have a Saul on the road to Damascus moment and recognize and repent for the anguish he's caused you. It's not your fault, and there's nothing you can do to fix the relationship. All you can do is work towards peace and acceptance of the situation (which is not to say it's OK or ever has been, but learning to let go and mourn the relationship you'd wish you'd had with him is hugely healing).

[Anonymous]

I feel it times 100. I spent many years helping my mother with my father with no appreciation. She became more and more entitled, arrogant and emotionally abusive. It was a huge ordeal to get a dementia evaluation-hoping that would explain it, but she passed. I spent a while in therapy exploding things and realized she has always been this way, but my dad and her friends helped keep it in check and now she has fewer outlets and an aging brain. I tried all the strategies and still she was so agitated and mean around me. I found when I had my own health crisis I reached my breaking point with her.

I got a lot of outside professionals involved with checking on her, managing finances, etc. The fact she could continue to be abusive when I was battling my own illness made all the guilt go away. It was clear to me it was a huge inconvenience to her and if I passed away she would say the same thing she said when a friend of her lost an adult child "what a waste of all the years of effort raising a child." To her she raised me to be her servant.

We are low contact and if she wanted no contact that would be fine with me, but I don't feel right have no contact without her initiating. She does go through periods of punishing me with the silent treatment and I enjoy the break.

I can only admit here. I don't like her. She has lost any empathy she once had. She is abusive. She is self-centered. I al fortunate my husband is nothing like her. I work hard to break the cycle with my own kids.

I will make sure she gets decent care, but can no longer be her verbal punching bag.

I am glad I developed healthy coping skills as a kid and an adult despite it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad is 82 years old and in bad health (although not likely to die anytime soon). I am 49. I am ashamed to say that it is only in the last few years that I’ve truly separated from my parents to see them for what they were and are — mostly good but terribly flawed too. My dad is and was a big personality and very needy. He takes up all the space. For example, he desperately wants adulation and attention. Given him an inch and he’ll take a yard, and he can’t help it. I even wonder if I was used to meet his emotional and psychological needs as a kid (of course he did!), inadvertently stunting my growth. Now that I see this more clearly, I am angry and have little patience for him and his behavior. He will talk endlessly and sometimes I am rude to him. In my mind, I’m thinking, shut up, but I don’t say that. Now that he is nearing the end, he is even worse — a grotesque and exaggerated version of himself: self involved, full of self pity. But I also feel guilty for feeling this way — guilty for pulling away from him when he needs me more than ever. It feels like a weighty burden that I want to be free of. Does anyone else feel this way? Help!

Don't feel guilty for pulling away as long as you make sure he is getting care. This is a taboo topic, but family absolutely can become abusive to difficult (and sometimes abusive) elders. You pull away so you don't cross a line. You need to do what you can to take care of yourself and find the right amount of distance so when you see him you can remain calm, try to steer him toward more pleasant conversation, laugh to yourself when he is insufferable and then end the visit when you can feel your frustration levels rising. You are protecting him by creating more distance.Better to see him less and have the interaction be positive than see him more and be resentful and 2 steps away from losing it.

[Anonymous]

I feel this deeply - my elderly mother is difficult and in poor health and I just got back into town from caring for her. OP, it's so hard when you have complicated feelings about a parent. I started telling myself to view this like dealing with a toddler, and for whatever reason that made it easier for me to deal with her while I was there. Now I'm back I feel horrible guilt for some of the things I was thinking in my head while I was there.

There's no right way, but know that many people feel what you're feeling that what you're feeling is totally okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I try to remind myself that when we were kids our parents likely wanted to tell us to stop talking many times and still listened to our endless stories as well. I also try my best to be patient and realize that many older people are just lonely and appreciate an audience and attention and that being old and feeling irrelevant can be depressing.

Seriously? My parents were of the "children should be seen and not heard" school of thought. Maybe more modern parents listen to endless stories, but not most of the old school parents.